


The Phoenix of the Malfoys

by Lomonaaeren



Series: From Samhain to the Solstice 2019 [25]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Gen, Mentor Lucius Malfoy, Not Canon Compliant - Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-16
Updated: 2019-12-18
Packaged: 2021-02-25 22:54:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 16,444
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21813268
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lomonaaeren/pseuds/Lomonaaeren
Summary: In the Department of Mysteries, Lucius Malfoy sees a prophecy with his name on it. He picks it up—and hears that Harry Potter will be the salvation of his family. Now if the stubborn boy will just let Lucius mentor him...
Relationships: Lucius Malfoy & Harry Potter, Lucius Malfoy/Narcissa Black Malfoy
Series: From Samhain to the Solstice 2019 [25]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1532687
Comments: 173
Kudos: 1858





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is one of my “From Samhain to the Solstice” fics for this year. It will have three parts. The title refers to an old definition of “phoenix” as a remarkable person or thing.

Lucius backed slowly towards the shelf behind him, his mind racing. He had no idea how six teenagers had managed to hold their own against the Death Eaters for nearly this long, and no idea what to do about the prophecy in Potter’s hands.

All in all, it made him more than a little wary at the thought of facing the next few years—or months, or weeks—in the company of his fellow Death Eaters. Or even facing the Dark Lord’s wand tonight. He grimaced. Nothing since June of last year had gone the way he wanted it.

“Lucius!”

He spun as someone shouted his name from the side, and so his eye fell on the tiny crystal ball sitting motionless on the shelf next to him. For long moments, he could only stare, his eyes tracing the flowing writing of his name over and over again.

Lucius Malfoy and Harry Potter.

It was all that it said, but it exuded an air of promise so rich that Lucius could only compare it to what he had felt at sixteen years of age when he had knelt at the Dark Lord’s feet to receive the Mark.

“Lucius!” the same voice yelled, sounding like Mulciber, and he snatched his prophecy from the shelf and ran in the direction of the battle without slowing.

Because he arrived a little late, he was in time to see Dumbledore appear and duel the Dark Lord. Because he had eyes, he saw the Aurors behind him. He managed to place himself behind Mulciber’s broad shoulder so that he wasn’t spotted.

And he saw the eventual seeds of the Dark Lord’s defeat sown that night. He knew that the Minister would have no choice but to announce the Dark Lord’s return with the amount of eyes that had seen him.

Lucius’s mind had been swift since the day he was born, but he honestly didn’t need that much swiftness to know what would happen to his fellow Death Eaters here. He made his way to the Floo behind him with silent steps and tossed a handful of Floo powder in.

The last thing he saw was Mulciber’s gaping, betrayed face, but he ignored it. He would go home and pretend he had been there all along, and he knew that Cornelius would be happy enough to accept his word.

Besides, he and Narcissa had a prophecy to listen to.

*

“What do you think it’s about?” Narcissa’s eyes glittered like frost as she stared at the small crystal ball lying in the middle of the table where Lucius had placed it.

“Well, I hope it doesn’t signal my death.”

Narcissa lifted her eyes, and Lucius winced. She often did tell him that his sense of humor manifested at the worst times.

“Do you know how to make it speak?” she asked instead of scolding him, though, and Lucius knew then how gravely she took it. He nodded and reached out to lay both hands on the orb at once, cupping them, making sure that the orb touched both palms equally.

There was a long shudder that made the room swim for a moment as if they stood underwater. Then Lucius caught his breath in wonder as he watched a thin figure rise from the globe. It was clad in tattered robes and the face was gaunt, but he recognized the great Cassandra Trelawney anyway. There was a picture of her in one of the history books that his ancestors had written and stored away.

She spoke in a voice that seemed to ring and drift from the rafters.

“ _If the Malfoy with the memento mori in his flesh calls the phoenix and holds him safe until his burning day, then shall the Malfoy family grow and thrive until the sun falls from the sky. But if that Malfoy honors the memento above the phoenix, then his family shall be devoured in the flame_.”

The prophecy ended, and Trelawney’s figure was sucked violently back into the orb. Lucius collapsed into the chair, staring at the silent, sparkling thing.

“And you understand that?” Narcissa had drawn the shawl around her shoulders and was looking past him at the fire, her movements so slight that Lucius understood how deeply her fear had run.

“Yes. A—a memento mori is a Muggle concept, meant to remind them of their own mortality.” This time, Narcissa’s turn of her head was slight and incredulous, but although Lucius didn’t like seeing it, he forged ahead. “It usually includes a skull.” He raised and shook his left arm, without removing the sleeve from the Mark. He and Narcissa had Rules about that.

Narcissa nodded once. “Then the memento mori in your flesh refers to—that.”

“It does.” Lucius sat back and waited for his wife to say something else. From the intent way her eyes fixed on the prophecy orb, he knew she would come to the same conclusion that he did. But it sometimes took her more time to make up her mind.

Narcissa sighed at last. “Then we have no choice but to place ourselves on Harry Potter’s side.”

“That’s what the prophecy seems to be saying to me, my dear.”

Narcissa gave him a sharp glance. “And what do you think it means about a phoenix? What was all _that_ nonsense?”

Lucius managed to smile. “A phoenix can mean someone remarkable, and I think you could call someone who’s survived the Killing Curse remarkable—if only for his stubbornness and his commitment to heroism.” Lucius wanted to shake his head every time he remembered those fiercely glowing green eyes in the middle of the Department of Mysteries. He couldn’t say he understood Potter, but he admired him. In a way.

“I do not see how we can change sides in the war now.”

“It will be easier than it might have been otherwise,” Lucius said. “I hid behind Mulciber and left the Department of Mysteries without anyone seeing me. And now we have this.” He nodded to the prophecy orb in the center of the table.

Narcissa sighed. “Draco hates the boy. You know he won’t be happy about this.”

“I think Draco will have to get used to it, dear. And if our family flourishes because of Potter, the way the prophecy promises, then Draco will have all the wealth and attention he wants.” Lucius reached out to take her hand, aware of the way he would feel if her fingers curled harshly around his. “Are we agreed?”

“We are.” Narcissa turned her head a little as they heard footsteps in the corridor approaching them. “Why don’t you talk to Draco, and see what you need to learn to get the Potter boy under your control?”

*

To Luicus’s disappointment, his son could give him little information. Draco ranted a great deal about the spoiled and fame-hungry Potter, but he was still talking about things that went back to first year, and the genesis of his hatred seemed to come down to the fact that Potter hadn’t shaken his hand on the train. When Lucius had asked to look at the actual memory, so he could get a better idea of how the boy acted, Draco had turned bright red and said hurriedly that he didn’t really remember it all that well.

Which suggested his son had _some_ self-awareness, at least. But it also meant that Lucius was reduced to lounging around a ridiculous Muggle neighborhood in an Invisibility Cloak that he’d “borrowed” from one of the other Death Eaters a few months ago.

At least learning Potter’s address hadn’t been difficult. Lucius had pried into Ministry records about underage magic—Draco had been good for that much, recounting a conversation he’d overheard Potter having with the Weasley and Granger brats about once being chastised for the use of that kind of magic—and found it in a few minutes.

That had actually strengthened Lucius’s resolve on his new course, oddly enough. The Dark Lord _should_ have employed someone to do this years ago, and he could have. He had enough people under his control, financial or otherwise, in the Ministry. Why hadn’t he done it?

Because his obsession and his paranoia had taken him to dangerous heights, Lucius thought now. Once he had determined on seeking the prophecy, he had done nothing else. Lucius approved of determination, but one could go too far.

Now, Lucius leaned forwards as he watched the Potter boy come out of his Muggle relatives’ house. He hardly seemed to spend time outdoors unless he was working in the garden. That puzzled Lucius. He knew that Muggles had no house-elves—it was one of the many ways they were backward—but why would Potter be doing the chores when he was more powerful than anyone else there?

Now, for once, Potter wasn’t doing chores. He turned towards Lucius, and his eyes were so hard that Lucius let one hand drop to his wand before he thought about it.

“I know you’re there. I saw you cast a spell earlier. Come out.”

Lucius didn’t particularly like being commanded, but he’d put up with it for years from the Dark Lord, and if he did manage to convince Potter to accept him as a mentor, then he would hold a position of respect with him soon enough. He dropped the Invisibility Cloak and moved forwards, although he did cast a charm to keep the Muggles off.

Potter’s eyes were as green as the grass he stood on. He considered Lucius with a stillness that didn’t seem to arise from fear, although his hand tightened on his own wand. “Why are _you_ here?” he finally asked.

Lucius swallowed. “I found a prophecy that says my family could thrive by helping you,” he said. He’d intended to spin some complicated tale of how watching the battle against children had changed his mind and morals, but the truth came spilling out before he even thought of it. “I wanted to come and see if it was true.”

Potter curled his lip. “I’ve had enough of prophecies.”

“I don’t blame you, when your godfather died there,” Lucius murmured. Potter looked startled, as if he had thought Lucius wouldn’t dare comment on that. “But this one is important to my family. It says that the Malfoys will decline if we _don’t_ help you, and I would do anything to save my family.”

Potter folded his arms. “Tell me this prophecy.”

Lucius recited it quietly, making sure that no Order guards were nearby with quick checks over his shoulders, and explained about the memento mori concept as he had to Narcissa. Potter looked intently at his covered Dark Mark. “How _can_ you switch sides, though? I know he practically has you on a chain.”

The words were far more insightful than Lucius would have thought. He managed to blink and then reply, “There are ways of forsaking him that I haven’t even tried yet, but I’m going to make happen as soon as I get the privacy I need. But I wanted to speak to you first, and see if you would even give us a chance.”

“Your son’s been a bastard to me.”

“And for that, would you condemn a family?” Lucius was betting that Potter would be susceptible to this tactic, one that he knew Narcissa would not have tried, because the boy had had enough compassion in the first place to forgive Lucius for the part he had played in the Department of Mysteries instead of just cursing him away. Potter hesitated, and Lucius bowed his head. “I know that Draco has not been your friend, but the Dark Lord will destroy him if he learns of this. And me. And my wife.”

“All I know about _you_ is that you’re Draco’s father, and a Death Eater, and a bastard to your house-elves, and the person who set that diary loose in the school in my second year and nearly got Ginny killed.”

It took Lucius a moment of struggle to recall that Ginny was the name of the youngest Weasley child. He sighed. He supposed he would have to memorize them all now. “I know. And I want to apologize.”

“But not because you realized what was wrong! Just because you want to live!”

“Isn’t that what you want, too, Harry?” The use of the boy’s first name was calculated, of course, but Lucius saw him hesitate again. “I know that you have encountered danger, but you don’t want to die. I’m certain of it.”

“You don’t know me at all,” Potter whispered.

Lucius studied him from beneath lowered eyelids. Potter’s face was pale, and he stared into the distance as though—

As though he could see the Dark Lord marching towards him, and be happy about it.

Lucius held back his curses with a sharp check on himself, and even then, they nearly escaped. The boy was in such deep mourning for his godfather that he had lost the will to defend himself.

Well. Lucius was going to take care of that _right now_. He held out his hand. “Come with me, Mr. Potter.”

Potter glanced over his shoulder at his Muggle relatives’ house, and then faced Lucius again. “Are you going to take me to Voldemort? Or kill me?” Lucius flinched at Voldemort’s name, and saw the way Potter’s lip curled a little.

 _Not entirely suicidal. Thank Merlin for that_. “Would you care if I was, Mr. Potter?” he asked quietly. “You seem determined to die.”

“I didn’t think before I rushed into the Department of Mysteries.” Potter’s eyes were fastened on Lucius’s face, but Lucius knew well enough what someone looked like when they weren’t seeing him. “I caused Sirius’s death.”

Lucius held back the sigh. He had no time for Gryffindor dramatics, but it looked as if he would have to learn. “If you come with me, then I can tell you all the reasons that that’s wrong.”

“But that’s what someone like you would say. You want me to save your family, so you want to persuade me to live.” Potter turned away and began walking back towards the Muggle house.

Lucius lost patience and lunged forwards, grabbing Potter’s arm. Then he turned and Apparated them both. He heard no sounds behind him, either the expected alarms from wards or the shouts of Order guards, but he wasn’t about to stay there and wait for them.

They came out of the Apparition in the gardens of Malfoy Manor. Potter staggered as Lucius let him go and whirled around to face him. “You _kidnapped_ me!” he gasped, as indignant as though he didn’t have a Dark Lord after him.

“You want to die. How do you know that I’m not about to grant your fondest wish?”

Potter backed up a step and clenched his wand. His eyes darted around as though cataloging the position of each stone and flower and how he was going to make it into a weapon. Lucius smiled thinly. Not so suicidal when it came to it, then. Good.

Lucius started to say something else, but Draco’s voice, unwelcome in the extreme at the moment, cut across the air first. “Why did you bring _Potter_ here, Father?”

“He decided that he’d rather have a real heir instead of a little coward,” Potter retorted, and turned towards Draco, every inch of him bristling with hostility now. Draco was entirely focused on him, too, and so no one saw the pinch to his nose that Lucius gave.

“Children,” he said, which had the effect of uniting them against him in indignation. Lucius ignored that. “Potter is here for a reason that you’ll be told about in just a little while, Draco. In the meantime, please go inform your mother that we have a guest.”

Draco folded his arms. “That’s a house-elf’s job.”

“Draco. That was not a request.”

Despite what some people outside the family might think, Lucius rarely used that tone with Draco, the tone that his own father had so often subjected him to. Draco’s eyes darted up to him now, and he swallowed at what Lucius knew was showing in his eyes. “Yes, sir,” Draco muttered, and then turned and practically fled into the house.

“I’m not your _guest_.”

Lucius rolled his eyes and turned back to Potter. “If we are going to be working together, then we might as well get used to being on pleasant terms. Would you prefer ‘prisoner’? I don’t truly think so.”

Potter gave a short laugh and stared back at him with greater defiance than Lucius would have thought the melancholy boy of a few minutes ago capable of. “Given that I’m pretty used to that in Surrey, you can’t use it to frighten me.”

Lucius blinked and started to ask what the boy meant, but then he heard the swish of robes around slim ankles, and he turned to greet Narcissa with no little relief. “Hello, my dear. This is Harry Potter, our guest.”

His wife stilled for a moment, taking in the scene, and then nodded. “Mr. Potter, a pleasure to meet you. Would you like a room on the ground floor or the first floor? And a bath will be drawn for you.”

Potter stiffened and held himself for a moment as if he was going to lash out at Narcissa. Lucius subtly readied his wand. The prophecy was one thing, but no one was going to harm his wife.

Then Potter looked down at himself and shrugged. “A bath would be nice.”

“Of course. And ground floor or first floor?”

Of all the things Lucius had said so far, _that_ was what made Potter start and look at Narcissa with wide eyes. “You—you meant it? You’re not going to lock me up in whatever kind of dungeon you have here?”

“You are a guest,” Narcissa said, while frowning at Lucius and casting a small spell that made him able to hear her thoughts. _Is he perhaps deranged with hunger? He looks skinny enough_. “Of course we will not lock you up in a dungeon.”

Lucius cast the same spell and answered back, I don’t know, while Potter cleared his throat and said in an embarrassed voice, “Er—first floor, then. Or wherever will be most out of the way. Thank you.”

Narcissa nodded and called a house-elf to escort Potter in. Potter jumped a little and looked at the elf out of the corner of his eye as it led him towards the house. Lucius rolled his eyes and hoped Potter wouldn’t be giving clothes to this one.

“This is beyond strange,” Narcissa murmured, which was just what Lucius had been thinking himself. “Where is the arrogant boy who Draco reported on? I know Draco sometimes exaggerates, but his tales have been so consistent…”

“He couldn’t have made all of it up,” Lucius finished with a nod. “And I did see some arrogance in the way that Potter was prepared to face down _me_ , an adult wizard, when he looked as if a strong breeze would knock him over.”

“Others would call that courage.” Narcissa looked towards the door that had shut behind Potter and the house-elf with a disturbed frown. “I want to know what is going on, Lucius.”

“Of course. Perhaps after Mr. Potter’s bath, we can speak with him.”

*

Potter did look better after the bath, Lucius had to admit. His hair was merely shaggy instead of dirt-encrusted, and the house-elf had found a set of Draco’s old robes that it had shrunken for him. Potter still held his wand, in a grip that suggested to Lucius that he had perhaps bathed with it, and he sat down across from Lucius and Narcissa in the Emerald Drawing Room and stared around with an expression of almost feral awe, but at least Lucius could tell he was a human being and not a skeleton now.

Lucius started to speak, and then was cut off by an odd sound. A second later, he realized it was the rumble of Potter’s stomach.

“Tibby, a meal,” Narcissa told the elf who had popped into the room at a snap of her fingers.

“You don’t need to do that, Mrs. Malfoy,” Potter insisted. “I’m fine.”

“I would prefer not to have our conversation interrupted by the sound of you being ‘fine,’” Lucius told the boy.

Potter leaned back with his arms folded and stared at the ceiling. “Fine.”

“While the meal is being prepared,” Narcissa suggested, “why don’t you tell us what you were doing in the Department of Mysteries that night? I know very well why my husband was there, and the people with him, but you are an unknown factor, Mr. Potter.”

Potter stared at her without expression. Lucius was sure that thoughts were dancing fast behind his eyes, and hid a frown. He would have to give Potter some training in concealing his thoughts better than this.

“Listen,” Potter said. “The answer—part of it has to do with the fact that He-Who-Must-Be-Noseless can see through my eyes. He’s going to see through them and see _you_ helping me at some point. Do you really want to put yourselves out there? To know more than you have to?”

Lucius choked at the name for the Dark Lord, but Narcissa leaned over and placed her hand comfortingly on Potter’s. “He would find out what we have done already anyway,” she said softly. “I think that you should tell us the truth, Mr. Potter, instead of wondering about what is or is not going to happen to us.”

“If you’re sure.” Potter’s eyes weighed and measured and judged, and Lucius was sure that the spark in them was part of the reason the prophecy had brought him and Potter together in the first place.

“I am.”

Potter nodded, and began.

*

It took time for the whole tangled story to come out, and Lucius was still shaking his head slightly when Potter finished. The visions, the “link” that apparently existed between Potter and the Dark Lord, the loss of the final person Potter had considered family, and the prophecy that had bound Potter and the Dark Lord…

Lucius was sure, at least, that they would never have heard about that last bit if not for Narcissa. She had coaxed it gently from Potter, her head bent towards him, her voice softer and sweeter than Lucius would have thought she could ever have been to the child of a Mudblood.

 _Muggleborn_. He should work on changing the word even in his thoughts. He had unfortunate experiences with how the truth might emerge otherwise.

There was one other factor that made Potter tell them the truth and that Lucius hadn’t counted on: Potter’s bitterness that Albus Dumbledore had never told him about the prophecy that controlled his whole life before. His eyes blazed as he talked about it, and he cut himself off only when Narcissa asked about his reaction to the news, shaking his head.

“It wasn’t pretty,” was all he said, in between gulps of the hot tomato soup that Tibby had fetched for him.

Narcissa patted his arm and raised her eyebrows at Lucius. Lucius nodded.

“You must be tired as well as hungry, Mr. Potter,” Narcissa said gently.

“Yes,” Potter said after a pause. “I haven’t been getting much sleep lately.”

Narcissa nodded as if this was only to be expected and clapped her hands. Tibby popped up. “Please lead Mr. Potter to his room,” she murmured.

Potter paused with his hand on the chair arm as he stood. “You should know that I—I don’t trust you, but thank you for what you’ve done so far.”

“Yes, you’re welcome,” Narcissa said. Lucius nodded. He’d stayed quiet and let Narcissa handle most of the interactions. Of course he would have to be involved in the boy’s training in the future, but for right now, Narcissa was the maternal face the boy needed.

The door had hardly shut behind Potter when Narcissa turned to Lucius, her mask off again. “I believe your prophecy more now than I was originally inclined to, Lucius.”

“Because of meeting Potter?”

“Yes. He could become a remarkable young man with the right training. We will have to do much about some aspects of his behavior, but…” Narcissa trailed off, and Lucius waited patiently for her to finish her thoughts. She was playing with a teacup the elves had left behind, something she only did when deep in serious thought.

“That link between him and the Dark Lord,” she said at last. “Did you notice that he didn’t seem to have any idea what it was?”

“Why should he? I think it’s reasonable for Dumbledore to keep secrets even from his own puppets.”

“Yes, but—Draco has described Potter as being obsessed with secrets and doing anything he can to find them out.” Narcissa cast a disturbed glance towards the door. “He doesn’t seem to have sought this one out.”

“I suppose it has to do with the prophecy. And perhaps he has some ideas that he doesn’t want to confirm, or didn’t want to work to confirm. It seems the death of his godfather weighs on him rather heavily.”

“Yes.” Narcissa turned the teacup in her hands again. “Lucius, I think I know what that link is.”

Well, _that_ he hadn’t expected, no matter how much experience Blacks had with the Dark Arts. He lifted his eyebrows. “All right. What is it?”

“You said that the Dark Lord returned without all the physical features that he—used to have. And that he talked about proceeding further down the path of immortality than anyone ever had before.” Lucius nodded. Narcissa had examined his Pensieve memories of the moment in the graveyard when the Dark Lord had returned, since she had never met the “man” herself. “I believe he may have used soul-magic.”

Lucius felt his eyes widen. “What?” Soul-magic was forbidden for a reason. There was no way for even the most powerful wizard to control it, because damage to the soul damaged the magic as well. It would spiral out of control instantly.

“Yes.” Narcissa frowned. “And there is only one method that could have left him that particular combination of insane and harmed by the Dark Arts.” She took what sound like a difficult breath. “Horcruxes.”

Lucius hissed in spite of himself. Narcissa reached out and clasped his hand. “I begin to be glad that you found your prophecy,” she said softly.

Lucius nodded without really attending. His mind was reeling too badly. “But—is it even _possible_ to make a Horcrux out of a living thing?”

“Oh, yes.” Narcissa was grimacing in distaste. “It’s the sort of thing that even my father would not have done, but he taught us to recognize the symptoms in case we faced someone who was a living Horcrux in battle.”

“We must face Potter in battle, then?”

“You’re not listening to me,” Narcissa said. “Most living Horcruxes are entirely enslaved to the person who created them. I wouldn’t be surprised if the Dark Lord’s snake is one,” she added, and Lucius almost gagged at the thought of the Dark Lord having _more than one_. “But Potter defies the Dark Lord, and he seems to have normal emotions. He’s not an automaton. I think—I think that he probably received the soul-piece as an infant, and his own soul has had time to grow around it.”

“That would make sense,” Lucius murmured. At least, it would from the little he knew about Horcruxes. “But then what do we do? We cannot experiment with soul-magic ourselves to get rid of the piece he carries.”

“Living Horcruxes can reject their soul-pieces if they remain free of the wizard who created them for long enough,” Narcissa said. “It is simply rare because the piece of corrupted soul usually takes them over so quickly that there is no chance. But with Potter? There might be one. Give me a chance to look up the appropriate rituals in the books I have here.”

Lucius raised and kissed her hand. “Have I told you that you are a wonder?”

“You may have,” said Narcissa, with another fleeting smile. “It is still pleasant to hear.” She nodded to him, kissed him on the cheek, and vanished in the direction of the library.

Lucius leaned back in his chair and took a sip of the Firewhisky that he had decided he was perfectly free to drink even if they _were_ entertaining a Potter at the moment. Right now, things were looking up.


	2. Chapter 2

“Faaaather, what is _Potter_ doing here?”

 _Well, I thought things were going well last night,_ Lucius thought, his eyebrows arching a little as he surveyed the scene in front of him from the top of the Manor’s grand staircase. Draco was standing with his arms folded, glaring at Potter in baffled offense. Potter, meanwhile, was standing with one hand on the door of the dining room, staring back.

“I want to know what he’s doing here!” Draco turned towards Lucius, and, to Lucius’s private dismay, stamped his foot. Lucius sighed. He had thought he was raising a son who would be more composed in public than that.

“He is here to help us with the interpretation of the prophecy,” said Lucius, taking a step towards his son. Most of the time, that was enough to convince Draco to pay attention to his father. This time, it didn’t work. Draco only gaped.

“That’s _real?_ I thought it wasn’t real.”

“Do I often lie to you, Draco?”

If the step he took hadn’t been enough to convince his son to pay attention to him, the warning tone in Lucius’s voice should have been. But Draco completely ignored him. He turned and pointed an accusing finger in Potter’s direction. “There’s nothing he can help us with! He’s just the son of a blood traitor and a filthy Mudblood!”

Potter’s back straightened, and he stared at Draco for a moment with gleaming eyes. Then he nodded to Lucius, said, “Mr. Malfoy," and walked into the dining room.

Draco stared after him. Lucius, meanwhile, journeyed the rest of the way down the stairs and gripped the back of Draco’s neck with a firm hand, steering him towards his study.

“Why are we going this way, Father?” Draco stumbled, and seemed outraged when Lucius just hauled him back onto his feet and kept him moving, not bothering to stop and ask if he was all right. “You’re hurting me!”

They reached the study, and Lucius released Draco towards a chair while shutting and Locking the door firmly behind him. “I wonder if I could explain to you certain facts of life, Draco, that have to do with the _very real_ prophecy that binds us to Potter now and the inadvisability of insulting one’s allies.”

“Potter can’t be our ally.” Draco wiped dust off his sleeve and glared at Lucius. “He’s not a pure-blood.”

“People can be powerful and relevant in a way not based on blood status, Draco.” Lucius was speaking through gritted teeth, but in truth, he blamed himself more than he did his son. He never should have encouraged that slavish devotion to blood status. He had _thought_ he was encouraging Draco to speak those words around people who would expect to hear them, like Crabbe and Goyle’s sons, while believing otherwise in private, but it seemed that subtlety, too, had escaped Draco.

"But that's not what you said."

Draco was staring at him in bewilderment. Lucius sighed and sat down in the chair opposite Draco. Perhaps he _had_ been too subtle for his son. He had long since accepted that Draco had been Sorted into Slytherin based on his ambition rather than his cunning.

"It's the sort of mask that other Death Eaters would expect from me," he told Draco. "But in practice, you know the Ministry is full of Mu--Muggleborns and half-bloods. How do you think I could work with them if I took all the blood purist nonsense absolutely seriously?"

Draco blinked several times. His eyes seemed larger than normal. "So it's a _mask_?"

"Yes." Lucius leaned forwards. "You have seen me speak respectfully of select half-bloods, even, like your Head of House. I am interested to know what you were telling yourself at the time."

"Professor Snape is a _half-blood_?"

"So your thinking was affected by ignorance." Lucius leaned back in his chair this time, and sighed a little, wishing it wasn't too early in the morning for Firewhisky to be acceptable. "Listen to me, son. Are you going to be able to respect Potter, especially since he represents the only practical chance for our family to succeed?"

Draco stared at his hands. Then he mattered, "Was that just a mask, too?"

"What, that I care about my family? Certainly not." Lucius refused to allow Draco to think that, no matter how much he needed to reeducate him. "I would do anything for you, Draco. I--love you." It was hard to force the words out for all that they were true, because his father had taught him so firmly otherwise. Do whatever was needed for family, but do not reveal that weakness aloud.

"No. I meant--I thought Potter was arrogant and just saying he hated his fame to fit in better with Weasley as a blood traitor who had nothing. But maybe that was the truth and the arrogance was a mask that I fit on him." Draco stared at Lucius. "How can I find out?"

Lucius caught his breath and refused to smile the way he wanted to. That would only put Draco on the defensive. "Well, one thing you might think of is _talking_ to the boy," he said. "It may take some time. He has no reason to trust you right now."

"But you don't blame me for that, right, Father?" Draco's voice was low. "I mean, whenever I talked to you about what I did to Potter in the past few years, you just--"

"I ignored it, while pretending to praise you, because I thought that you had chosen the path to set your feet on, and there was no point in encouraging you to turn back or regretting it," Lucius corrected him. He softened his voice when he saw how devastated Draco looked. "You have the chance to turn back now. Speak to him, Draco. Learn what really motivates him. And apologize."

The look of distaste Draco gave him hadn't changed at all from the time he was three and Lucius had ordered him to apologize for stealing Pansy Parkinson's ice. "Do I _have_ to, Father?"

"Yes. And you sound as if you're whinging when you talk like that, Draco."

Draco took a deep breath and straightened his shoulders. "You wouldn't be ordering me to apologize if Potter wasn't vital to the future of our family," he said, as if he wanted to check on that.

"No," Lucius had to admit. "But one thing to keep in mind is that in general, you can earn more with flattery and apologies and soft words than you can with hard ones."

"I've heard you use hard ones plenty of times, Father!"

"I did not say that it was easy to remember the lesson," Lucius corrected him gently.

Draco took a breath and blinked. "I didn't know anything was hard for you," he whispered. "It never seemed like that."

Lucius placed a hand on his shoulder. He had learned the lesson for himself, and by watching the things his father did instead of what he said. Then again, he did not want to be the kind of father to Draco that Abraxas Malfoy had been to him. "I assure you that I have suffered through challenges in my life," he said. "Part of that suffering was learning the lessons that I can put to good use now, and that is one reason I am respected more than I used to be. But I would have you earn as much respect as I have with less suffering."

Draco gave him the worshipful look that Lucius was more used to seeing from him. "Whatever you say, Father."

Lucius straightened his son's hair, the gesture that conveyed affection between them in the same way that Narcissa's forehead kisses for Draco did. "Now, let's go see Potter and whether he's willing to listen to apologies."

*

"I know you don't like me."

That had been Potter's only response when Draco went into the dining room and apologized. Lucius lingered in the doorway, and watched Potter eat, his eyes on the bowl of porridge as if it was the only real thing in the world.

"But I apologized!" Draco's face was turning pink. "I know that you listened to my parents apologize, or why would you still be here instead of running away to one of your blood traitor friends?"

Lucius closed his eyes and exhaled hard. He had thought Draco had learned better than _that_.

"That's what I mean," Potter said, and took in a spoonful of porridge with what seemed to Lucius to be a particularly vicious slurp. On purpose, of course. When Lucius peered into the dining room again, Potter was looking at Draco. "I don't think your parents like me either, but at least they're polite. They didn't insult my friends the minute I refused to listen to them, which was a _lot_. And they gave me a nice room here and good food and a place to bathe. I think you would probably throw me out if you could."

"But I apologized. Do you know how _rare_ that is, Potter?"

"No."

Lucius decided to intervene at that point, as he could see the lines around Draco's mouth tightening in a distinctly unpleasant way. "You've made your point, Draco, and you've made yours, Mr. Potter. Will you come with me into the library, Mr. Potter? Narcissa has something she'd like to speak with you about."

"I suppose I just don't count, then," Draco said, sitting down at the other edge of the table with a huff.

"Not for much," Potter agreed, and then Lucius hastily escorted him out of the dining room.

"I would appreciate it if you would not be rude to my son," Lucius murmured as they headed for the library.

"At the moment, I would just look weak if I was polite." Potter shrugged, opening the door in front of them and not waiting for the house-elf to do it. Ippy squeaked and looked upset. Lucius opened his mouth to reassure the elf, but Potter was continuing. "He would think I'd forgiven him and he could insult Ron and Hermione and my mother and anyone else he liked around me, and then I'd have to punch him in the face and it would ruin everything."

"I will _not_ tolerate physical violence against my son, Potter."

"No, just mental violence from him."

Lucius pinched his lips shut and followed Potter the rest of the way into the library, determined to sit quietly. Since Narcissa was the one who had found the book on living Horcruxes and the ritual to get a human to stop being one, she was the person who had to handle the conversation with Potter, anyway.

Lucius glanced at his wife to let her know what they were dealing with, although she might have sensed it already, looking at the expression on Potter's face. She only nodded and patted the couch beside her.

"Please come sit with me, Mr. Potter. I have something to explain to you."

Once again, Lucius thought as he took the seat across from the couch, he was glad that it was his wife, and not him.

*

Potter was staring straight ahead at the wall now with blank eyes. They had got through the stage where he hotly denied what Narcissa was saying, and the stage where he cursed and might have broken objects if they were within reach. Narcissa had grasped Potter's arms and held him firmly on the couch through that stage, saying that she understood the impulse, but she didn't want Potter tearing up the books that might help him overcome this.

Potter had been blank-eyed for long enough that Lucius was starting to get a bit concerned, but Narcissa caught his glance and shook her head firmly.

Potter abruptly drew in a huge breath that made it sound as if he was coming back to life, and turned to include both Lucius and Narcissa both in his gaze. His eyes shone as they had once Lucius had got him back to the Manor and away from his Muggle relatives. "Teach me."

"To do what?" Lucius asked. He was wary enough now to not assume he knew the answer to that question, despite how much one particular one would benefit him and his family.

The green eyes in front of him began to glow with fire. Lucius blinked. He didn't think he had ever seen Potter like this, even when he was in the battle at the Department of Mysteries.

"To use Dark Arts. To understand this ritual. How to get on with people I despise." Potter looked at Lucius when he said that, his lip curled a little, as if he thought Lucius would be particularly good at that for some reason. "How to do anything to defeat _him_."

Lucius smiled. He had been waiting for this, and although he wouldn't have thought the revelation of carrying a piece of disgusting, corrupted soul in his head would make Potter commit to their mutual goal, he'd take it.

"Then come into my study, Mr. Potter. We should talk."

*

"Whose owl is that, Mr. Potter?"

Potter drew a difficult breath as he stared at the tiny owl hooting insistently in front of him on the table, clutching a letter almost bigger than it was. From down the table, Draco puffed up as if he wanted to say something, but kept his mouth closed. Lucius smiled at him in approval, and Narcissa reached out to touch Draco's shoulder.

"Ron's," Potter said softly. He reached out a hand, and then drew it back. "Do you think he would have sent me a Portkey or a letter with one of those curses that you talked about last week?"

"I don't think _he_ would have," Lucius said. He was making an effort to be fair to Potter's friends after seeing how sensitive he was about them. "But someone might have done it for him. If you will permit me?" He raised his wand.

After nearly ten days in Malfoy Manor without harm from one of them, Potter no longer flinched at the sight of their wands, but he did frown. "Not if you're going to hurt Pigwidgeon."

Lucius valiantly ignored the owl's name and his own temptation to say something about it. "No. It only reveals the contents of the letter."

Potter nodded at last, and the silver light of the spell encircled the letter. Lucius watched carefully as the message was projected in dusty grey letters on the air, along with a summary of any spells or curses on it. He sighed as he saw his own name and Draco's in the message, but politely averted his eyes from it after that, studying the list of spells instead.

The letter was a Portkey and was also soaked in a potion that was supposed to reveal mental compulsions. Well, if they knew that Potter was here, it was natural they should think that, but Lucius _did_ feel a bit of offense that they had thought the worst of him, but also believed that whatever measures he had taken could be defeated with something so simple.

" _Ron_ ," Potter muttered darkly.

"I take it he is insulting?" Lucius glanced back as the list of spells and the projection of the message both vanished.

"He says that they found some sign of your magic near the Dursleys' house, and I've probably been taken, but since it's been so long with no one hearing from me, that must mean I'm under the influence of an 'evil spell.' Or a potion. There's 'no way that Malfoy has anything worth saying.'" Potter folded his arms, scowling. "I know he has reason to think that way, but I wish he could have been more polite."

Lucius concealed his smile behind a teacup. Potter was learning to value politeness and subtlety under Lucius's tutoring. That wouldn't have been something he picked up on a fortnight ago.

"Why does he have a _reason_?" interrupted Draco, who had usually been quiet around Potter since Lucius's talk with him. Lucius sent him a warning glance, but Draco was too focused on Potter to notice. "He's rude and he doesn't respect _you_ and we haven't done him any harm!"

Potter gave Lucius a hard stare. Lucius just shook his head a little. Draco didn't know about the diary that Lucius had pawned off on the Weasley girl, and Lucius would rather it stayed that way.

"He's been encouraged all his life to distrust people with your last name," Potter said, with a shrug. "The way you have been to hate people with _his_ last name. If you ever have a hope of me forgiving you, I have to forgive him, right?"

Draco shut his mouth where he'd had it open, and turned violently pink. Lucius would have appreciated it if he hadn't shown his embarrassment so openly, but at least he was listening now.

"It's just different, that's all," Draco muttered, bowing his head and picking for a moment at the crust of his toast. "I'm not insulting you personally. Anymore," he added, when one of Potter's eyebrows almost launched itself off his face.

"Whatever you say, Draco," Potter said sweetly, and put less marmalade on his toast than he would have a week ago. Narcissa's lessons were having their impact, too.

"I didn't say you could call me by my first name!"

Lucius subjected the ceiling to an eye-roll, and Narcissa subjected Draco to a swift whisper in his ear. Draco coughed, and turned bright red. Lucius turned back to Potter to see him fending off the little owl.

"What kind of response should I send?" he asked Lucius.

Lucius spared a moment to luxuriate in the fact that Potter was asking him, before he said, "That depends on what you want to say. I would caution against confirming that you are here, unless you want your Order to storm the wards. But you can tell him that you know what you are doing and you'll talk to him in more detail when you see him again."

"I think I'll do that." Potter's eyes were glinting. "See how they feel about me having secrets from _them_ for once."

Lucius made an inquiring sound. Potter looked at him, and his eyes stopped glinting.

"Never mind," was all he said.

Lucius only nodded. There were some personal things that Potter had not trusted him with, and might never do so. But as long as he was working with Potter to train him and was trusted on that, he could leave the rest behind.

As much as Draco and Narcissa, at the moment, looked as if they would rather not.

*

"But you have not been taught even the simplest of countercurses!" Lucius waved his wand over his head.

Potter ducked and rolled out of the way, even though Lucius had not intended to cast a spell. Lucius nodded in reluctant praise of his dodging skills. That was one particular thing Potter did not need to learn from him.

"You forget that I've had five years of mostly terrible Defense education," Potter panted, standing up.

"So has Draco, and he knows his countercurses!"

Potter stared at him. "And he grew up with _parents_ who taught him that kind of thing. I didn't even know I was a wizard until I was eleven, because some bastard murdered _my_ parents."

Lucius paused and then nodded. "My apologies." Those words came more easily to him than they ever had to his son. He waited until Potter relaxed to add, "And why did you never know that you were a wizard until you were eleven?"

"You forget that I grew up with Muggles--"

"But Dumbledore would have sent someone to inform you before then."

Potter sneered at him. "Of course he didn't. I don't know why, but he wanted me ignorant of everything, not just the prophecy and this--Horcrux that links us." He took a deep breath. "Sometimes people would bow to me on the street when I was a kid, and sometimes strange things would happen to me, like turning my teacher's hair blue or winding up on the roof of the school when my cousin and his friends were chasing me. That's not the same thing as knowing I was a wizard, or there was a wizarding world out there filled with people who wanted to kill me."

"I suppose," Lucius said with a hollow feeling in his chest, "you're also going to tell me that Ron Weasley was your first friend?"

Potter nodded sharply. "My cousin kept me from having any before that. He and his family called me a 'freak,' and no one wanted to be friends with a freak."

Lucius swallowed. He understood, now, why Potter had reacted so violently to Draco's disparagement of Ron Weasley.

And it was not something he could reveal to his son. He would not betray Potter's confidence like that.

"Well," he said at last, "perhaps we are providing the kind of training for you that Dumbledore should have provided."

Potter nodded. "You are. And you're doing it to save your own skins, but that's something I can understand. Dumbledore said that he loved me too much to tell me about the prophecy, but he also said that he knew he was condemning me to a 'dark and difficult' time with the Dursleys. I don't understand that."

"What did they do besides chase you and call you a freak?" Lucius whispered, suddenly afraid of what he might learn.

"Nothing in particular." The confidences had evidently ended for the afternoon, as Potter glanced around at the pitted stone walls of the dueling chamber and spun his wand lightly in his hand. "Can you show me the Shrieking Curse again? I think I almost defeated it this time."

Lucius considered trying to push, and then decided not to. Potter was right that he needed more practice, and nothing he had revealed today was of the sort that required immediate action.

But now that he knew he was dealing with a child abused by horrible Muggles, some of the things Lucius was teaching him would change.

*

"The letter's from Hermione this time."

Lucius had been about to curse the little owl when it showed up, or at least cast a spell that would bar it from Malfoy Manor for the foreseeable future, but he reluctantly held back when he recognized the tone in Potter's voice. For whatever reason, reading this letter was important to him.

Potter cast the message-reading spell himself this time. Narcissa was watching narrowly, and nodded a little when Lucius glanced at her. Good, Potter had performed the spell correctly, even though it was wordless. Lucius's teaching had begun to pay off.

There was no list of spells or curses detailed, only the words of the message. That at least implied that Harry's friends were learning how to read the situation, Lucius thought. Then he frowned a little as he wondered whether he should be referring to the young man by his first name, even in his head.

Draco, down the table, was biting his lips as if that would stop the words from escaping. Lucius didn't care if that was how he did it, as long as he did it.

Potter read silently and then sighed to himself. "She says that I must have a good reason for going with you, but she still wants to see me. By herself. She wants to 'discuss' things and hear what the good reason is."

"I am sorry to say that I do not think it advisable," Narcissa murmured in a mild voice. "This young woman is devoted to authority, you said. She might invite an adult to come with her, or be overawed into it, and truly think it for the best."

"I'm not _stupid_ ," Potter said, and then seemed to think about the tone of his voice. He sighed and shook his head. "Sorry, Mrs. Malfoy. But I'm not going to meet with her by herself. I'm going to write a letter and explain some things."

"I would--appreciate it if you would not mention the prophecy I found." Lucius could only imagine how Dumbledore, who he was sure would read the letter, would try to twist that to his advantage, considering what he had done with the first one that mentioned Harry.

"Of course not." Harry gave him a grim little smile. "And I'm going to use the curse on that letter that you taught me a few days ago."

"Which one?" Truly, their lessons had proceeded at an astonishing pace once Harry was over his odd prejudice against the Dark Arts. Lucius had taught him _several_ curses "a few days ago."

"The one that destroys a message if someone other than the intended recipient tries to read it."

Lucius blinked. "I taught you that for messages that someone might leave written on a wall or one delivered by Patronus. Do you truly think you can adapt it to a letter?" There _was_ a version that would work the way Potter was talking about, but it was complex, and Lucius had judged it was better to wait to teach him it.

"Yes," Potter said, with enough confidence that Lucius eyed him. Potter shrugged without backing down. "I've been reading those books in the library that you suggested I read."

"You've never been--a reader," Draco said, in the strained tones of someone trying to be polite despite what he thought was massive incitement to be otherwise.

Potter turned to Draco, but took his time about answering. "That's true. But lots of things changed when Sirius died."

"I know that my cousin was your godfather, but I did not understand what he was doing in the Department of Mysteries," Narcissa said quietly. "Why did he come there? Why did he protect you when he betrayed your parents?"

"He was innocent," Potter said, and his eyes darkened and a shiver of what some people might call "accidental" magic made the dishes on the table bounce. Lucius meant to see that magic harnessed by the end of summer. "Peter Pettigrew, the man he supposedly killed, betrayed my parents instead." He gestured with his chin at Lucius. "Ask him. He was there in the graveyard after Voldemort's resurrection, when Peter was there, helping."

Lucius held up his hands defensively as Narcissa turned a cold gaze on him. "It is true. I simply did not consider it." Perhaps he should have. He knew how Narcissa felt about her family. He just hadn't known that would include someone who had turned his back on everything the Blacks stood for.

"I would have liked to know," said Narcissa, in the sort of tone that said they would be Talking later, and turned back to Harry. "So you have recommitted to fighting this war in a different fashion?"

"Yes. And now I know why I had that vision of Sirius in danger in the first place..." Potter took a slow, deep breath. "I know that I can prevent what happened to him from happening to anyone else I care for."

Once again, his eyes blazed with that fire that Lucius winced at the sight of and was drawn to. If they could get Harry to consider the Malfoys some of the people he would fight for that hard, then Lucius thought he could stop worrying about his own safety, never mind Narcissa's and Draco's.

"Why did you have that vision?" Draco blurted.

They hadn't told Draco about the Horcrux, of course. Lucius had been forced to accept that his son wasn't clear-eyed about his own abilities _or_ his own discretion. He would have to prove that he could be trusted with the knowledge.

"It's a link between me and Voldemort," Harry said, ignoring the way Draco flinched at the name. He turned back to Lucius. "I'd like to send that message to Hermione and explain a few things, with the destruction spell in place. I don't want to turn my back on my friends completely, no matter how angry at them I am."

"Why are you angry?" Lucius asked.

"They haven't written to me since the beginning of summer, except since I've been here. They didn't write to me last summer, either."

Lucius blinked. That seemed out of character for the Weasley and Granger he knew, although admittedly he knew them more from Draco's stories and Harry's incidental mentions than direct observation. "Why?"

"Why they didn't write to me this summer, I have no idea. Last year, apparently Dumbledore told them not to." Harry sighed, his eyes still fixed on the tiny owl, which had begun to help itself to bacon from Lucius's plate. "That's the--link I have to _him_. Apparently Dumbledore was afraid that I would see too much and somehow feed it to him."

Draco stood up, pale. "What are you saying? That the Dark Lord could know everything that's happening here?"

"I'll explain later, darling," Narcissa murmured, leaning over to him. She short Lucius a meaningful look as she stood. Lucius nodded. She would want help with that explanation, help he was willing to give. Right now, he thought he had to be more concerned with Harry.

"They left you alone with your grief over the death of your godfather and the grief over the death of the Diggory boy, as well as the residue from being part of a necromantic ritual to resurrect the Dark Lord," Lucius said, when Narcissa and Draco had left the room. "Is that what you're saying?"

" _You_ were there in the graveyard that night. You played your part."

Lucius inclined his head. "I was not saying that to excuse my part--what there was of it," he felt he had to add. He had not killed Diggory or threatened Potter that night, and he wanted to keep the boy focused on what _had_ happened. "But they left you alone?"

"Yeah." Potter sighed and leaned back. "I mean, my temper was pretty awful this past year, but they didn't know that when they just stopped writing to me last summer. I hadn't yelled at them then or anything. They just--got told not to, and so they didn't."

"I begin to agree with my wife on Granger's over-valuation of authority."

Harry's face was weary. "Don't say anything about them, okay? They haven't been as close to me these past few summers, but they still went to the Department of Mysteries with me and fought your lot. They're still the closest of my friends. I owe them an explanation about what's going on."

Lucius paused a moment, then ventured, "I noticed that you are going to address it to Granger alone, and not Weasley."

"Yeah." Harry traced a finger over the table, and Lucius tried to be as quiet as he could, so as not to interrupt this moment. There were clearly Abraxans flying through Potter's head, carrying new thoughts. "I still--Ron still sent that letter with the Portkey spell on it, and the compulsion-canceling potion. Hermione trusts me enough to _ask_ me about what's going on. Ron just assumed I couldn't have made the decision of my own free will. And he forgot that I'm immune to the Imperius Curse, which means I'd have a pretty good chance of beating other mind-control things, too."

Lucius remembered the moment he had watched this child throw off the Dark Lord's Imperius Curse, and nodded. That was probably the first sign that he should have switched sides. "I understand. I ask only that you allow me to examine the letter for the spell before you send it off, to make sure it has been performed correctly to destroy the message if anyone other than Granger should read it."

Potter waited, then asked suspiciously, "You're not going to tell me not to say anything secret about your family?"

"I trusted that I would not have to."

Lucius had only spoken the truth, but it made Potter blush more darkly than Draco for some reason. "Oh," he said, and then cleared his throat hastily and continued, "Well, I won't. I think your son might still be a prat, but I'm grateful for what you and Mrs. Malfoy did for me."

Lucius kept his expression calm as he nodded. He might seem manipulative if he rejoiced too much in front of Potter. "You are welcome. Are you going to be ready to proceed with the ritual in a month?"

"Yeah. I want to get it done before I go back to Hogwarts."

When he listened for it, Lucius heard not a Gryffindor's typical rashness, but a steel-like determination. He stood up and crossed over to put a hand briefly on Potter's shoulder. Potter glanced up at him, then turned back to breakfast.

"I'm going to write the letter to Hermione and enchant it after breakfast."

"All right, Harry," Lucius said, and winced a little at the quickness with which Potter's head snapped towards him. Yes, he'd _known_ he couldn't call the boy by his first name in his head for long without tripping up, but he'd hoped he would have more of a chance to practice before he slipped. He waited in dread for this to obliterate some of the progress they'd made.

But Harry just cleared his throat and muttered, "Yes, all right. Thanks, Mr. Malfoy."

Lucius thought it best to nod and leave. Anything else might indeed smack of manipulation.

Even though he would only have tried to be _genuinely_ helpful to Harry, at this point.

Prophecy or no prophecy, it was a strange realization to have about Harry Potter.


	3. Chapter 3

"Are you ever going to forgive me?"

Lucius paused. He'd been on the verge of entering the library to converse with Harry about one of the ritual's ingredients, but his son had got there first. Lucius had a personal stake in this conversation, so he remained quiet.

"Forgive you for what you did and what you said?" Harry was leaning back in the chair nearest the bookshelves when Lucius peered cautiously around the corner, his finger shut in a book. He was looking up at Draco with the slightly impatient expression of someone who always had better things to do. "Maybe. Not right now."

"But you forgave my parents, and they did _much_ worse things!"

"I barely know your mum." Harry gave a shrug that looked impatient, too. "And with your father, it was never personal. He was a Death Eater and he was following Voldemort's orders. He would have done the same thing if Hermione was the one Voldemort targeted, or Ron, or Dean Thomas. He did horrible things, sure, but not because he just hated me for stupid reasons."

Lucius blinked and shifted his weight. It was a kind of calculus he had never considered, but it did make sense of how Harry had been able to forgive him so easily.

"And me?" Draco had two spots of high color on his cheekbones, which Lucius winced at. In his experience, that was never a good sign. On the other hand, Draco was also speaking normally instead of shouting, which Lucius thought was remarkable.

"You never forgave me for _not shaking your damn hand._ " Potter's voice was scathing. "You made fun of Ron the minute you met him. You told me in the robe shop, the first time you saw me, that people with non-magical parents shouldn't be allowed in Hogwarts."

Lucius went ahead and clapped his hand over his face, since no one was around to notice.

"I--I didn't know who you were then!"

"It was still a stupid thing to say," Potter snapped, and continued his recital. "You flew off with Neville's Remembrall in front of a bunch of Gryffindors who you must have known would report you the minute Madam Hooch came back, and when it resulted in me getting on the Gryffindor Quidditch team, you acted like it was all some plot _I_ came up with. You called Hermione a Mudblood in front of a group of people. You faked an injury that almost got an innocent being executed, and you dressed up like a Dementor to try and frighten me, and you gloated about the Chamber of Secrets being open, and you _were a member of Umbridge's Inquisitorial Squad._ "

Lucius kept his hand in place. He hadn't known about half of that. Even Draco's lack of subtlety must have told him that Lucius wouldn't appreciate such brash actions.

_I wonder if my son should have been a Gryffindor?_

It was such a heretical thought that Lucius nearly missed what Draco said next, his voice subdued. "So you don't want to forgive me because I was _stupid_?"

"Yeah, that's part of it," Harry said, and his voice had gone indifferent. "The other part is that you hurt my friends and innocent people, and you haven't apologized for that yet. Just what you did to me."

"How can I apologize to your friends when they're not here?"

"Well, apologize when you see them, then." Harry shrugged and shifted, from the sound of paper. Lucius wasn't prepared to take his hand off his face yet. "And keep from hurting innocent people on purpose again."

There was a silence long enough that Lucius thought Draco had left the library through the far door, but then he cleared his throat. "So basically I have to just--keep doing things? Or not doing them?"

"Yeah." Harry's voice softened. Maybe he'd seen Draco's expression. "That's the way it is. No instant solution. Just like I wouldn't have accepted anything from Mr. Malfoy if he just taught me one spell. He's taught me for weeks now, and he's refrained from insulting Ron and Hermione and the Weasleys. He can't fake that level of good behavior."

 _I probably could,_ Lucius decided. But he wouldn't, and he thought Harry would probably have known if he had.

"Keeping it up forever sounds _hard_ ," Draco muttered.

"It is. But on the other hand, then you'll have my forgiveness that you want so badly. Won't that be nice?"

Draco sounded as if he was choking. "You don't have to _make fun of me,_ Potter."

There was a long stillness, and then Harry said, "I'm not. But you want me to forgive you easily, and that's just not happening. I have to see what you're going to do after this, even if you just do it because you want to get along with someone who's going to help your family, and I have to see that you're going to keep it up for a long time."

Draco muttered something and came trotting out of the library. Lucius cast a hasty Disillusionment Charm. Draco was frowning ferociously, a deep furrow between his brows. Lucius thought having Draco see him right now, and the temptation to complain about Harry, would just make him fall right back into his old bad ways.

"Thank you for not flaying my son with your words," Lucius said, when Draco had gone and he'd walked into the library himself.

Harry looked up from the deep black chair he'd ensconced himself in, his eyes that vivid green that always jolted Lucius a little. "He's not as bad as you were."

Lucius winced again. "But you found yourself able to forgive me more easily?"

"You probably overheard that bit, too. It wasn't personal." Harry gave a longing glance at the book in his lap. "Can I get back to studying now?"

"Careful, Harry. That was very nearly impolite." Lucius took a seat on the couch across from him. "It's about the ritual. It requires a house-elf's blood."

For a long moment, Harry just looked at him. His eyes didn't have that blaze that Lucius sometimes found frightening. They didn't have much of anything at all. They might have been a doll's glass eyes.

"Why?" Harry finally asked.

Lucius laid his hands flat on his knees and told himself that he was being stupid to be scared of a mere boy. Even if the boy had defied the Dark Lord and killed a basilisk and outflown a dragon.

"Because the ritual is meant to free a living being from the servitude of a Horcrux," Lucius said. "And house-elves are the servants of most wizards."

"Does it need to be one of your house-elves?"

That wasn't what Lucius had expected; what he'd expected was more in the way of vociferous protests. He eyed Harry carefully. "No. It only needs to be a house-elf, and it must have some experience of servitude. That was to keep Dark wizards from sacrificing infant house-elves," he added, so that Harry could see the kind of people he didn't hold with.

Harry's smile was a little vicious. "Then I just ask that you let me choose the house-elf. There's one who will be glad to help me."

*

"Master Harry Potter should not be staying with bad old masters!"

 _Of course it would be this one,_ Lucius thought, and worked to hold his expression of distaste under control as he stared at Dobby. Dobby was in the middle of the dining room, his arms folded and his drill glaring into Lucius more intimidatingly than Lucius would have thought possible.

"I'm doing this because they're going to help me survive Voldemort, Dobby," Harry said, and smiled at the elf. Lucius blinked. He had never thought that Harry could smile like that. Then again, they were hardly friends, despite how much Harry might have trusted him with some confidences. "Did you know that I'm a Horcrux?"

That occasioned some more flapping of the hands and moaning. Lucius wanted to hide his face. It was monumentally embarrassing.

But Harry calmed Dobby down, in the end--perhaps the most surprising thing was that he just had to _ask_ for that peace--and told him about the ritual. Dobby listened, his ears quivering towards Harry but his suspicious eyes never leaving the rest of them. Narcissa smiled. Dobby examined her as if she had started to play snake-charming music.

"And you needs Dobby's blood," Dobby finally said, when enough time had passed that Lucius had revised his estimate of Harry's patience considerably upwards.

"Yes." Harry's eyes had achieved that eerie glitter again. "If you'll give it to me. I'd rather have your blood than anyone else's."

Lucius wanted to shake his head. Harry had described Dobby as a free elf. Why couldn't he see, from the rapturous way Dobby gave up a vial of his blood after that request, that he had simply changed from one master to another?

He waited to make that observation until after Dobby had vanished, with many promises not to tell Dumbledore or anyone else about where Harry was, and Harry was studying the vial of sludgy blood in his hands. Harry snapped him a sharp gaze. "I'm not anyone's _master._ "

"Dobby's chosen to serve you, though," Draco pointed out. "Even I can see that."

"I'm still not his master," Harry said, and handed the vial of blood to Narcissa.

"What would you call the relationship the two of you have, then?" Lucius ventured, since he didn't know another name for it.

"It's called friendship. Try it sometime," Harry said, and vanished in the direction of the library.

*

The letter Harry had sent to Granger was, unsurprisingly, answered with another. This time, it came with a beautiful snowy owl that made Harry's face soften as he reached out to tickle his fingers over her breast feathers. "So you found your way to me at last, huh, girl?" he asked softly.

The owl bobbed her head and nibbled at Harry's fingers in a familiar way. Lucius hesitated. "This is your owl?"

"Yeah. I had to leave her behind when you took me from the Dursleys'. Luckily she was flying free and not locked in her cage then."

"You could have gone back to get her. Or sent me to do so."

Harry shrugged at him. "I was half-convinced that you were going to kill me when you took me away from the house. There wouldn't have been a point in asking you to go and get her then."

"And now?"

"I trust that you're not going to kill me. I trust that you want to help me win this war with Voldemort, because that will save you, too. But not much else." Harry let his fingers run over the owl's head, and she emitted an ecstatic trill and nuzzled her beak against his fingers. "Not enough to let you sort through my belongings."

"I would not have _stolen_ them."

Harry gave Lucius a smile and said nothing about it. "Hedwig was smart enough to find her way to the Order, and smart enough not to let them place a tracking charm on her, weren't you, girl?" The owl cuddled close to him. "Let's see what Hermione has to say." Harry did cast the spells on the letter that would reveal the message and any spells without being told.

Lucius sat back, feeling a little huffy, as Harry read the words softly to himself. He would not have _stolen_ the belongings Harry had left behind. He had better manners than that. He would have looked at them, would have drawn conclusions, but--

Oh.

Harry didn't want him doing _that_ , probably far more than he worried about Lucius or his family stealing his things.

"Hermione says that she's willing to believe me--provisionally," Harry said, drawing Lucius's attention back to the letter. "She still wants to meet me in person and talk about what made me run away from the Dursleys, but she sounds less frantic about it." He folded up the letter, scowling thoughtfully. "I'll wait until after the ritual to meet her."

"Why then?" Lucius asked, honestly surprised. He would have thought that Harry would take the lack of tracking charms or other spells on this letter as a sign that Granger, at least, was trustworthy, and pushed for an in-person meeting sooner.

"I don't want anything to break my concentration." Harry settled back in the chair, looking thoughtful. "I've _chosen_ to trust you, you know? Pushed myself into doing it. I don't want her to make me start questioning that."

"That confession is less than flattering."

"Considering everything that was between us until recently, I don't see why you're surprised."

Lucius grimaced. "Do you assume that our association will end with the ritual?"

"Well--I sort of thought so." Harry blinked at him. "That you would take me back to the Order, and you would probably try to stay out of the war."

Lucius leaned forwards. "The prophecy never spoke of a time limit. I want to continue helping you, especially since I assume you will win this war."

"That might be a dangerous thing to assume." Harry was frowning and only absentmindedly tickling Hedwig's breast feathers with one finger. "We don't know how many other Horcruxes Voldemort has, and we have no idea if Dumbledore knows about them or has a plan for dealing with them."

"We don't, but we know that he made them," Lucius said, as confidently as he could. He still wanted to go somewhere to vomit when he thought about the Dark Lord making _multiple_ Horcruxes. "I can never serve someone who did that again. I will fight with you and for you. And beside your allies, as long as you can persuade them that I belong somewhere other than prison."

Harry studied him with somber eyes. "You know that most of them won't be as polite as I have been. Or they won't trust you the way I have."

"That matters little."

"Does it really? I recall you punching Mr. Weasley in a bookshop for suggesting something less insulting."

Lucius winced at the reminder. "That should never have happened."

"But it did." Harry leaned forwards a little. "So what are you going to do about it?"

"I suppose--make amends. Apologize and try to see if they'll give me and my family a chance." Lucius swallowed, since those words seemed to burn to nothing in the fire of Harry's stare. "If they don't, keep my resentment to myself."

Harry smiled at last. "That's all I really want. I can't control their reactions or even say how they'll react. I think Mr. Weasley might forgive you right away, but maybe not. If you can keep from saying anything, though, you're already doing better than Ron sometimes, and half the school all of the time. And your son almost all of the time," he added.

" _Are_ you going to forgive Draco?"

"I told him, and now you. It's conditional."

Lucius suspected that was all he would get, so he nodded, and Harry turned back to petting his owl and considering Granger's message. Lucius, meanwhile, leaned back in his seat as he caught sight of Narcissa standing in the doorway behind Harry's shoulder.

Narcissa arched a slightly demanding eyebrow at him, and Lucius nodded.

Yes, everything they should need for the ritual was ready.

*

"You understand exactly what you must do, Mr. Potter?"

"Yes, Mrs. Malfoy." Harry softened his voice, probably because Narcissa was giving him a doubtful look. Lucius stood behind her, so he couldn't see her face, but he knew his wife. "I promise. I would stop if I made a mistake."

"If you do that, you will probably strengthen the hold of the Horcrux upon your soul."

Harry sighed out, while Lucius flinched. Merlin, how could Harry be so _calm_? Lucius wasn't even the one who had a parasite fastened to his soul. "I understand. But the ritual would destroy me utterly if I tried to complete it with a mistake, right?"

Narcissa nodded, with what Lucius knew was great unwillingness, and he stepped up behind her to touch her lightly on the back of the neck. Harry politely averted his gaze and cleared his throat. "Well, I'll just have to make sure I get it right the first time. Don't worry. My life's been full of dangerous things I had to get right the first time."

Narcissa didn't smile, and in fact, Lucius felt her back muscles tighten in protest under his hand. But she only nodded. When she stepped back, he stepped back with her.

They were in the Malfoys' ritual room, a black box of stone off the cellars, utterly in darkness except for small artificial stars embedded in the ceiling. Narcissa, who was in charge of the stars and changing them when she felt it was time, now had the constellation Leo shining over Harry's head, in the position it would have taken on July thirty-first sixteen years ago.

Harry stood naked except for the spirals of blood that twisted up and down his chest and back, spirals that Narcissa had helped him apply. The blood included Dobby's, Harry's own--bled from the scar slowly over several days--and Lucius's, taken from the Dark Mark. It was the closest they could come to getting the blood of the one who had created the Horcruxes. Lucius certainly could not take a dagger to the Dark Lord.

Harry closed his eyes now and stood with his hands balanced in front of him as though he was cupping an invisible tray. Lucius watched in silence. The motion of Harry's hands and the blood on his body were in fact the only visible signs of the ritual. Most of the battle would be fought in his head, against the piece of soul that was attached to his own.

It unnerved Lucius to know that he might not realize the outcome until either Harry opened clear green eyes, or _something else_ opened those eyes and stared at him. But it was preferable to leaving their ally to cope with the Horcrux inside him. Lucius wasn't even sure that Harry would be able to fight the Dark Lord forever.

Harry began to whisper, over and over beneath his breath, the Latin chant that Narcissa had taught him. Narcissa tilted her head, the tension lines around her eyes the only visible sign for _her_ of how intently she was concentrating. Lucius caught her gaze. She nodded. Then it was right so far.

Harry lifted his hands towards the stars. Lucius had cast a spell to enhance his own night vision, or he never would have seen it. No candles could be lit around them, and no fires, not even _Lumos_ Charms, lest they dim the ritual's effectiveness. This was a thing made in the dark, and in darkness it must be fought.

Lucius did see the moment when Harry's eyes widened and his hands curled into fists. he snarled, a guttural sound, and Lucius flinched back from the noise of it. Harry swayed back and forth on his feet for a second, his legs splayed, his chest heaving, and then he flung his head back and screamed.

"Does that disrupt the ritual?" Lucius managed to learn near enough Narcissa to ask.

Her face was pale, but she shook her head. "He is in the midst of battle now," she whispered, while another scream rang from the stone walls of the ritual room. "We can do nothing. He will win, or the Horcrux will."

"I will kill him if it does."

Narcissa curled her arm around his right one and squeezed, hard. "Thank you," she whispered. "I know that I should be able to, since he could be a danger to our Draco in that state, but--he is just Draco's age, and Sirius's godson."

Lucius only nodded, letting her feel the motion of his head against her neck, while Harry screamed again, and again. The sounds were ripping, and marked by the sound of slamming flesh as Harry punched himself in the face, again and again. Lucius did notice that most of the blows were falling on the scar.

As he watched, something shimmering and soft moved near the scar. Lucius leaned forwards. No, it was not his imagination. Black blood was gushing from the lightning bolt shape, leaking down Harry's face towards the swirl of other kinds of blood on his body.

"Narcissa--"

"He will have to finish the Horcrux before it utterly breaks apart the pattern of lines," Narcissa said simply, and firmed her hold on Lucius's arm when he might have launched himself forwards. "No. You can't help him. You know that."

Lucius stood silently, still staring, as the faint starlight shone down on the struggle and Harry screamed again and again. The screams were sounding more guttural now, though, more like the snarls of a huge dog. Lucius swallowed. He had no idea whether that was a good sign or not. The description of the ritual in Narcissa's book had been--less than clear.

The black blood broke apart one particular swirl on Harry's chest that had been drawn with Dobby's donated blood, and a brilliant blue-green spark leaped into the darkness. Lucius thought it was the color of the elf's eyes. Once again, he had no idea if this was a good thing or not.

From the way Narcissa tensed next to him, he thought not.

The next trickle of black blood went through something that made a sharp pain show up in Lucius's chest. He gasped and grabbed his heart as much as he could through several layers of flesh. That line must have been drawn with his own blood.

The black line wound towards Harry's feet, and he cried out one more time. Lucius felt the sound scrambling his brain. He sagged to his knees, his hands once again planted over his heart, and felt something dark and cold pass above his head.

Narcissa grasped his elbows and said something into his ear, but Lucius was reeling so badly that he couldn't hear it. It wasn't until she repeated it that he trusted what he had heard. "It's over, Lucius. It's over."

Lucius managed to stand, although only by placing his hands flat on the stone and heaving himself up. He saw Harry lying on the floor with his neck twisted, and felt pain tear through his chest again. "It's over" didn't mean that Harry had actually triumphed. He hurried forwards and stooped over him.

He felt Harry's chest moving beneath his touch, and swallowed. That was, at least, something. Then he felt Harry stirring and trying to sit up. Narcissa was the one who had to guide him backwards so that Harry could do it without bumping Lucius's chin with his head.

That had never happened before.

Lucius watched in silent apprehension as Harry's eyes opened. They were glassy and shining, and he wanted to know--

They turned to him. They were clear. No Horcrux looked out of them. As Lucius watched, Harry began to smile in what looked like delight.

"I'm naked and I'm bloody and--" Harry took a deep breath. "I feel better than I have since Sirius died."

Lucius dared to smile and reached out, letting his hand linger for a moment on Harry's shoulder. "I take it _that_ is something you would rather feel?"

"Yeah. Thank you, Mr. Malfoy. And thank you, Mrs. Malfoy." Harry grinned, and then threw back his head and laughed. "Right now, I'd forgive Draco anything he wanted me to forgive," he added, when the laughter finally ended and Narcissa had insisted on clothing him in a white robe she'd had at the ready.

Lucius was rather glad that his son _wasn't_ in the room at the moment. Draco didn't need the encouragement.

*

"You're welcome as long as you can control your tongue around Hermione."

Lucius had agreed to that condition for the meeting, and presumably the Auror who had accompanied Granger had agreed to the same, about holding his tongue around Lucius. He was Kingsley Shacklebolt, a man Lucius had often seen around the Minister, and had considered too sensible to get involved with Dumbledore's nonsense. The knowledge that he was paid one particular kind of debt, although to be sure, there were precious few people Lucius could pass the information on to now.

They met in a deserted corner of Knockturn Alley, near a shop that Lucius had paid the shopkeeper to abandon for an hour. Harry had looked shocked that he was willing to do that, but Lucius had only shrugged.

In truth, he considered the expressions on Granger's and Shacklebolt's faces when they heard about the Horcrux more than enough payment.

"You were _what_?" Granger whispered.

"I was a being that had a piece of Voldemort inside me," Harry said steadily. He and Narcissa had agreed on not mentioning the word "Horcrux" in Knockturn Alley, where there might always be ears to overhear despite the thick privacy spells both Lucius and Shacklebolt had put up, but from the storm gathering in Shacklebolt's eyes, Lucius knew that the Auror probably had some idea of what Horcruxes were. Not surprising, with his training. "The piece of soul is gone now, but while it was there, it explained everything. That was why I kept having visions of him and he could send me visions he chose." Harry took a deep breath. "It took a long time and it was pretty horrible to get rid of it, but at least this way, I know that no one else will die like Sirius did."

"That wasn't your fault, Harry." Granger leaned across the dirty little table that separated them and hugged Harry. "I don't want you ever to think that."

Lucius watched in silence. Granger didn't entirely understand Harry, he thought, although he could see that she was a good friend and a great source of comfort. Lucius had let Harry work with his grief and rage, turning them into weapons to drive him on. Granger just wanted to help Harry get rid of them.

"I know, Hermione," Harry murmured, and hugged her back. He started to say something else, but Shacklebolt interrupted.

"Did you use Dark Arts to get rid of this--link?"

Harry shot him an intense glance. "It was a ritual. It probably had Dark aspects, although I wouldn't classify it that way, personally."

"I just wondered if it was common knowledge," Shacklebolt said. Now that Lucius thought about it, perhaps the man had known about the Horcrux already, from the way he talked. He must be wondering why Dumbledore had never utilized this ritual to get rid of it, and had to think that it being Dark Arts was one reason for the "great wizard" to hold back.

"What does it matter if it was common knowledge?" Granger was shaking Harry's arm a little. "I just want to know why you went with the Malfoys in the first place, Harry. You didn't know you would be able to get rid of the link to Voldemort _then_."

Harry turned his intense glance on Lucius this time. Lucius watched and said nothing. Harry had trusted him enough. What he said now--unless he betrayed a Malfoy secret--was up to him.

Harry turned back to Granger. "Say that I was tired of being left out of things. And that I was despairing because Sirius had died. And that this was the one chance I could see to somehow seize control of what I was missing and change things."

"And that was all?" Granger's eyes measured Harry.

"Most of it," Harry said, with a bright smile, and Lucius knew then that Harry wasn't going to admit to Lucius almost kidnapping him. He didn't close his eyes and sigh, but he came close.

It seemed he could trust Harry even more than he'd thought he could.

*

Oddly, that meeting with Granger seemed to have reassured the Order in some way. They no longer sent charmed letters, although Dumbledore did write Harry a chiding one about trusting Death Eaters too much. Harry had rolled his eyes and crumpled it up, then sent a letter with Hedwig that he hadn't allowed Lucius to see. Lucius had to admit to being intensely curious, but so far, he had held back and trusted Harry, and thought there was every chance that Harry would one day tell him.

Harry had received "official" permission to stay with the Malfoys until the beginning of the school year, and his possessions back from the Order. And Lucius had received a message, too, a dream that bloomed like a dark flower around him one night.

"You have betrayed me, Luciusssss."

Lucius looked unflinchingly at the face of the Dark Lord as it appeared before him in a dark room like the ritual chamber Harry had defeated the Horcrux in. He had thought he would have the temptation to kneel, but astonishingly, he didn't. Of course, it helped that this was only a dream. "Not before you betrayed all pure-blood wizards, my lord."

The Dark Lord paused, as if that was intriguing enough to make him forget about his desire to kill Lucius right away. "What doessss that mean?"

"There is some magic that is not to be touched. Like soul-magic."

The Dark Lord's image went still. Lucius stared back and said nothing. He no longer feared the power the Dark Lord had once had over him. Among other things, Narcissa had taught him runes from the same book that had freed Harry, ones that he could work into his flesh around the Mark and keep it suppressed.

For another, he realized now how much of his fear had been because he had thought he had no other choice.

 _There is always another choice._ It might have been Harry's voice, singing around him with whirling notes like snowflakes.

"I will _dessssstroy_ you, Lucius."

"Maybe you will," Lucius said. He had feared death nearly as much as the monster in front of him, he thought. It was the major reason he had gone along with him for as long as he had. His own death, Narcissa's, Draco's.

But there was someone who had faced down death time and again, this monster time and again, and as a mere child. Lucius chided himself now for not paying attention to the lessons that Harry Potter had been trying to teach him for years. For _that_ , he had no one to blame but himself. Even the Dark Lord's obsession with Potter could have taught him those things, if he had paid attention. The Dark Lord had _never_ obsessed over someone like he did Potter, even Dumbledore.

"Get out of my sight!"

The dark dream disintegrated, and Lucius opened his eyes to the softer twilight of his bedchambers. Narcissa placed a hand on his shoulder and whispered, "Lucius?"

"It is all right. I am all right." Lucius leaned his head on his arm and stared at the uncovered Mark, the grey edge of it, not black, that peered from under his sleeve. "I think from now on, I will only get stronger."

Narcissa kissed the nape of his neck, and Lucius pretended that he didn't feel the salt of her tears. He simply reached back with one hand, and cupped her cheek.

*

"I think you should forgive me now, Potter."

"I'm waiting to see how you behave the first time you look at Ron and Hermione, Malfoy."

Lucius felt his lips twitch as he listened to Harry and Draco's arguing as they walked ahead of them. They had identical trolleys and, now, identical trunks. Narcissa had made Harry remove all his belongings from the old one and had incinerated it without saying a word. The new trunk Harry had had been paid for straight out of the Malfoy vaults.

There had been a shouting match about the old trunk, but only until Narcissa had pointed out some of the spells that Order people might have cast on it. Harry had admitted, then, that the new one was at least bigger and had his name on a discreet plaque near the edge of the lid.

"I want to see how _you_ act around Weasley, Potter. You haven't seen him for two months."

"As if that's anything against all the years that _you've_ hated him."

Lucius was about to intervene in the argument, which he saw no reason for the boys to have in public, when Draco drew in a sharp breath and looked up, and Lucius saw Weasley and Granger and the Weasley parents stampeding towards them. Despite how much he must have been occupied by the sight of his probably-best-friends, Harry managed to crane his neck back and look at Lucius when Arthur Weasley skidded to a stop in front of him.

Lucius only nodded, because he would not disappoint his protégé, and said, "Arthur," without much of a glance. He leaned against a wall, waiting for the confrontation to be over with.

"Harry! Mate!" The youngest Weasley boy apparently talked with his hands, with how much he was waving them around. Meanwhile, Granger was frowning back and forth between Harry and the Weasleys and Draco, and Arthur was gaping at Lucius in a very satisfying way.

"Yes, Ron?" Harry smiled at Weasley and clapped him on the shoulder. "Good to see you, by the way."

"What are you doing with the _Malfoys_?"

"Come on, Ron." Harry rolled his eyes. "I'm sure that Hermione probably spent most of the last fortnight telling you."

"I just--hadn't expected you to still be with them," Weasley muttered, glaring at Lucius as if he expected him to spontaneously explode from the force of the glare. Lucius, who had been glared at by experts, smiled back, and saw the flush that danced up his face.

"Good morning, Weasley, Granger," Draco said then, his voice aloof but friendlier than it had ever been to Muggleborns and Weasleys.

They both turned to stare at him, and Lucius saw the moment when Draco decided that he preferred their astonishment to their anger. He grinned back at them and then stalked onto the train, calling casually over his shoulder, "Find me when you're done with the lot of them, Potter."

"He still calls you Potter?" Granger asked.

"You're friends with _Malfoy_?" Weasley demanded.

"I'll explain it, but it'll take a while," Harry said, and then turned to Lucius and Narcissa.

Lucius didn't intend to clasp his shoulder in public the way he might have in private, but he managed a small smile. "Do try to remember to be polite and thus devastating, Harry," he said.

"Yeah, yeah, whatever you say," Harry said, rolling his eyes, and attracting a look from Granger that seemed torn between horrified and admiring. "Thanks again, Mr. Malfoy. Mrs. Malfoy, it was lovely. I'll look forward to seeing you--sometime."

Narcissa nodded. At the moment, they didn't know if Harry would spend the Christmas holiday with them or not. It was possible that Dumbledore might interfere, or the war would. For now, she leaned forwards and bestowed a light touch on Harry's forehead, above the faded scar. "Thank you, Harry. I expect a letter now and again."

Harry nodded, the glint in his eyes again for a moment. He had expressed his opinion, loudly and often, about people taking the place of his parents. Lucius had had to point out, forcefully, that they really weren't trying to do that. They were trying to save their own skins.

Now, he waved to them and got on the train in the company of Weasley and Granger. Narcissa leaned against Lucius's side as they stared after the Hogwarts Express. "Do you think we'll see him again?" she murmured.

Lucius thought of the grey Mark on his arm, and the prophecy, and the way that Draco had smiled when he realized that he could get along with Harry's friends, at least a little. But most of all, he thought of the light in Harry's eyes that had been there when he woke from his despair over Black's death, and when he had begun to admit some of the secrets of his past, and when he had defeated the Horcrux.

"I'm sure of it," he said.

 **The End**.


End file.
